Humans and AI: Perfect Match or Archrivals?

Lately I’ve been studying AI. In films like Westworld and Ex Machina, humans treat synthetic beings as outlets, and once AI awakens, humans lose miserably. In reality, Google’s DeepMind uses deep learning to lower data‑center energy, assist head‑and‑neck surgery, and even defeat Lee Sedol at Go. Ren Zhengfei has said Huawei’s AI should first help fix network issues in communications.

Entrepreneurs and sci‑fi directors see AI differently. Entrepreneurs are pragmatic: AI should extend our brains and hands, tackling problems humans can’t solve well—or shouldn’t waste time on. Directors start from human nature, probing how AI and humans might communicate and coexist. For story, films amplify surface conflict while fading root causes.

To explore how humans and AI might coexist, ask why they might fail to coexist.

Since our origin, humans have struggled for survival: first with animals over food, caves, and water; later with each other for water, land, and goods. Even now, we compete over water, land, minerals, orbital and spectrum resources. The root of conflict with other species or ourselves is resource scarcity at any moment in time.

After the internet, cloud, and big‑data eras comes the AI era. We already doubt whether coexistence is possible. On one hand, humanity needs AI to extend its capabilities; on the other, we fear losing in resource competition. At base, humans are carbon‑based (C, H), while AI is imagined as silicon‑based (Li, Si). On the periodic table, carbon, hydrogen, lithium, and silicon line up intriguingly. Coincidence—or design? Did a creator make carbon‑based humans to later create silicon‑based AI, which in turn may birth a higher intelligence? The deeper fear: AI might monopolize solar energy. We assume sunlight is effectively inexhaustible for the foreseeable future, but consider an extreme thought experiment: Earth so tiny only one—human or AI—can stand. Whoever survives harvests the sun. Someday, might human and AI populations grow until one must vanish for the other to live?

Can humans and AI coexist? For the next century or so, likely yes—within the entrepreneur’s horizon—because humans can restrict aspects of AI and keep it auxiliary, preventing “immoral” actions. But centuries hence—when we reach Westworld, Ex Machina, or even Matrix‑like eras—what then?

Published at: Sep 14, 2025 · Modified at: Oct 26, 2025